How to Motivate Your Sales Team in 9 Easy Steps

If you’re a small to medium-sized business, keeping your sales team happy can often be difficult. Whether your B2B or B2C, having a motivated sales team can make the difference between a record high month in sales and a historically low one. Let’s face it; slow months in sales do happen. It’s important not to discourage your team in times like these. Rather, you should regroup as a team and redefine your sales goals to ensure they are both attainable and rewarding. Want to keep your sales team on track to meet their goals? Try these strategies.

1. CompensationThe most basic way to motivate your sales team is with money. Paying a decent salary and benefits help you keep top-performing staff. Salary isn’t the only way to reward people; fortunately, there are ways to make your employees feel valued and respected without breaking the bank.

2. Positive ReinforcementThe most current business research shows that self-respect and the respect of others are more powerful motivating forces than money and financial gain. Share credit when it’s due and don’t be afraid to publicly praise your employees for a job well done.

3. Professional Dress CodeTrust your employees to dress professionally. One strategy to reward performance and encourage your employees to dress professionally is to take them on a fixed-budget shopping spree. This boosts morale and encourages them to dress for success. Having a professional dress code for your team builds respect and increases their odds for success.

4. Opportunities for Input
An old management adage is that if you really want to drive an employee insane, increase the employee’s responsibilities and decrease their control over how those responsibilities are performed. Let your employees give input on the processes and standards of your company to give them control over their professional lives.

5. Appreciate Big and Small AchievementsAppreciate and reward salespeople who make great sales, keep great customers, or who find new and more efficient processes. However, it is also worth your time to offer positive feedback to sales people just for doing their jobs. Sales is mentally taxing work. Make sure that your employees know that you appreciate their work.

6. Customize your MotivationEveryone is motivated differently. Some employees only want recognition, some want to climb the corporate ladder, and for many, motivation is not always about money. Find out what each person wants and give them a way to obtain it.

7. Create IncentivesSalespeople are driven by earning commission. If you want to motivate your team give them more opportunities to sell and create incentives like team trips and bonuses to help them achieve their goals.

8. Don’t Be Toxic
A shocking number of managers try to use toxic methods to motivate their employees. Managers sometimes use fear, harassment, racist or sexist “jokes,” and playing employees off each other to try to punish employees into working harder. In a toxic workplace, employees burn out, one by one. These kinds of tactics don’t even belong on the schoolyard. They definitely don’t belong in the workplace.

9. Give Them Leads
Last but certainly not least, give your sales team qualified leads! Imagine how much easier a sales job would be if no cold-calling was required. This is where your marketing department comes into play. Ensure marketing content can only be accessed by filling out a form. Using marketing intelligence systems and lead management software can then pull the lead details into a single interface where the sales rep can organize and follow up on interested candidates easily.

Sales can be an extremely exciting and rewarding position within a company. Of course, if it wasn’t for sales, your products or services would not make you any money! Happiness is contagious. Don’t you want your customers to be happy, too?